I Launched a PeerTube… Thing
So… I did a thing.
I spun up my own PeerTube instance.
I don’t fully know what I’m doing yet. That’s kind of ok.
What This Is (Right Now)
At the moment, it’s basically a dumping ground for:
- music practice sessions
- production experiments
- half-finished “finished” videos
- general creative noise
Think less “content strategy” and more “digital sketchbook that happens to be video.”
I’m making channels like:
- Music Practice
- Production
…and just… uploading. No polish. No expectations. Just reps.
Why Though?
Honestly?
Because I wanted somewhere to host my own video that isn’t YouTube.
I wanted to:
- embed videos into my website
- link them inside Obsidian
- not worry about platforms nuking, compressing, or “optimizing” my stuff into oblivion
This gives me a place where the media lives outside my notes, but still under my control(ish).
The $7 Question
Is it worth $7/month for something that currently gets 0 views?
No idea.
Probably not.
But also… maybe that’s the wrong metric.
I’m not trying to go viral.
I’m trying to build infrastructure.
And infrastructure always looks stupid at the beginning.
The Control Problem
This is where it gets weird.
Yes:
- it’s “my” instance
- I control the content
- I decide what exists there
But also:
- it’s not my hardware
- it’s not in my house
- I’m still renting space from someone else
So it’s this in-between state:
not Big Tech, not fully self-hosted — but closer
And honestly, I’m okay with that for now.
Shoutout to Fedihost — I like what they’re doing, and I’m happy to throw some money their way while I figure this out.
The Bigger Plan (aka The Spiral)
This is just one piece.
I’ve also got:
- a self-hosted Ghost blog (this one)
- a GoToSocial instance (diet Mastodon, and it’s sick)
- bots running through n8n posting:
- sassy house updates via Home Assistant
- daily “thinker” posts (LLM chaos, highly recommend)
- space weather reports (mildly unhinged)
- local weather from my Ecowitt station
And:
- a Matrix server (Synapse) that… exists. Not sure what to do with it yet, but it’s there.
The Federation Struggle
Not everything is playing nice.
Federation has been… temperamental.
I’m pretty sure my main issue right now is Pangolin.
It’s been the thorn in my federation foot.
Stuff almost works.
Which is somehow more frustrating than nothing working.
But we move.
Where This Is Going
The long-term vision?
Something like:
- fully self-hosted stack
- minimal reliance on Big Tech
- personal data ecosystem that actually belongs to me
- local-first + federated outward
And eventually…
a parallel digital life
Then:
- neighborhood mesh networking
- Reticulum experiments
- small-scale, local internet layers
…and then we just casually rebuild the internet from the ground up. No big deal.
Reality Check
Right now though?
It’s just:
me uploading slightly shitty videos of myself learning how to pluck strings and sing in key
And that’s perfect.
If You’re Curious
You can poke around here:
👉 https://cosmos.fedihost.io
And if you want context on who the hell I am:
👉 https://blog.aurionblack.com/about/
Final Thought
This is messy.
It’s inefficient.
It’s probably over-engineered in some places and undercooked in others.
But it’s mine (again… kinda).
And that’s enough to keep going.
Baby steps.